


Five Black Dresses

by alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist



Series: Getting Physical [2]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Best Friends, Gen, Past Drug Use, Reminiscing, Shounen-ai, letting go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 12:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14308647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist/pseuds/alittlepieceofgundamwing_archivist
Summary: by Zillie--Companion piece to GPIG [(Getting) Physical (in) Geology]





	Five Black Dresses

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).  
> \--------------  
> This fic features 1+2 and 3+4, but is primarily about the friendship between Duo and Hilde in my little GPIG AU.

Five black dresses hung in his closet.  
  
Duo shut his eyes, his mouth suddenly dry. All around him cardboard boxes were full of his life, full of all the tangible things that made him who he was. Or so he had mused to himself happily as he had stacked books, pausing to run his fingers over the spines or read a favorite passage _\--_ which was why the procedure had taken hours _\--_ and as he had wrapped small mementos in bubbles _\--_ popping only a few sheets. He had continued to think in rosy-hued nostalgic clichés until he had dumped a handful of shirts on the bed and turned back to the closet to see _\--_   
  
This.  
  
Five black dresses, pushed to the back of his closet. He'd almost forgotten they were there.  
  
Which was a lie.  
  
He reached for the first one. Short, sleeveless, a tight black slip with a separate black lace thing over it. He pressed it to his nose, and smelled the vanilla perfume she'd worn then. Vanilla Fields. He'd bought her some once, embarrassed all the way to the counter, but it had been worth it.  
  
He'd been with her when she'd bought the dress _\--_ or, rather, when she'd acquired it.  
  
+  
  
_Bloomingdale's, Bar Harbor, Maine, 1996._

_+_

When he'd told her he had taken up shoplifting, he'd been hoping for disgust.  
  
After all, it was what she'd shown when he'd mentioned the smoking _\--_ of various things _\--_ and the light drug experimentation. She'd stared at him like he was crazy and told him that she would never, never speak to him again if he ever, ever touched any of that shit again.  
  
"I have enough friends," she had snapped. "I don't need one who doesn't care enough about himself to think before he snorts. I don't need one who doesn't like himself, and I don't need one who'll be dead of lung cancer in thirty years if he hasn't died of an overdose long before that."  
  
He'd never told her how glad he had been to give it all up.   
  
He'd never had to.  
  
So when he'd admitted where the new clothes had come from, he'd expected the same kind of thing. Instead she had merely raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I've always wanted to be a thief," she said.  
  
And he'd remembered too late her fascination with certain kinds of badness _\--_ and that Gambit was her favorite X-Man. So here they were, wandering through Bloomingdale's, doing the same thing they'd done almost every weekend for the past two months.  
  
"So Syl got you started in this?" she asked, fingering a blue top.  
  
He glanced up. "Yeah."  
  
"Big surprise," she muttered.  
  
"I thought you liked Sylvia."  
  
She shrugged. "Sylvia Noventa might be fun, and I might identify with her on some things, but she isn't what I'd call an upstanding citizen. I mean, the fact that she's got more money than anyone else around here and still shops with a five digit discount says something about her."  
  
He studied her, then, and wondered for a second. . . ever since they'd started high school it had been harder and harder for them to spend time together. . . he knew he'd made a lot more friends than she had, but he was always like that. . . surely she wouldn't take up shoplifting just to have a way to hang out with him?  
  
No. Not her.  
  
She emitted a short sound of delight, and he looked over. She held a black dress _\--_ well, two, really, a shift of black lace roses over a slip-like dress _\--_ up against her. "What do you think?"  
  
He noted it was thin _\--_ easy to sneak in a bag or wear out under the bulky sweatshirt she had worn for that purpose. "It's gorgeous, babe. Hilde, it's totally you."  
  
+  
  
He brushed his fingers over the dress and hung it back up, not sure what to do with it.  
  
His lover stepped into the room. "I've got all your kitchen stuff packed."  
  
"Thanks, babe," he said, a bit absently.  
  
The kiss on his neck took him by surprise. "You okay?"  
  
Duo turned, swinging his braid a bit, and returned the kiss. With interest. "Yeah. I'm great."  
  
He put on his best smile under the scrutinizing gaze _\--_ if anyone could tell _\--_   
  
"I'll check for books out in the other room."  
  
Duo ran his hand over his hair and smiled. "Thanks, babe. Be lost without you."  
  
+  
  
They'd been friends since fifth grade, when, after a year of hating each other with a passion, the pudgy brat girl and the annoying hyper orphan boy had bonded. Over dogs, as he remembered.   
  
Hilde had been walking her dog, and he had loved the golden beauty of the retriever more than he had detested her. And something about the way she smiled at him had made him wonder if she wasn't as lonely as he was. So he had offered to show her the best place to take Beau. They had returned home just before ten that night, covered in mud and exhausted by laughter, to find that the police were just about to go look for them.  
  
Things like that made people friends.  
  
They had been inseparable all through school. He had even taken her to both their proms. He looked at the next dress in the closet _\--_ black satin with lace bodice, halter neck, short skirt. She'd worn that their junior year, with her hair still long up in shiny clips, and her eyes beautifully made up.  
  
+  
  
_Neptune Hotel, Exodus, Maine, June 1998_  
  
+  
  
He tugged his rented tux _\--_ the damned thing had, out of necessity, been cheap, and it felt it. "You look gorgeous, Hil."  
  
She looked away from the stars and appraised him. In the moonlight that lit the balcony she looked half-fey, slight and delicate as the moonbeams that danced along the waves. And was, he knew, as tough and persistent as they were.  
  
God, how he loved her.  
  
The thought brought a wave of guilt and frustration.  
  
He was pretty sure she loved him too.  
  
"You look good, Duo," Hilde said. She turned back to the view. "I was just thinking about. . . everything. In another year we'll be done. Gone. Leaving Maine and off somewhere. Anywhere. Everywhere."  
  
He perched on the stone balcony, the chill of it touching him through his tuxedo. Even in the summer Maine had cold nights. "Where?"  
  
"I don't know, Duo," she said, and for a minute he thought she looked lost, overwhelmed by the vastness of the sea and the sky before them. Dark and endless, he thought.  
  
Her dress sparkled as she turned to him with a grin. "And what are you doing out here? Last I saw you were dancing with Leah, and she looked pretty happy." She made an attempt at waggling her eyebrows.  
  
"Leah's not my type," he said, and this time he looked away.  
  
"Duo, she looked willing. Isn't that every boy's type?"  
  
His heart sort of rose in his chest and he felt like he was going to explode _\--_ implode _\--_ plode somehow, blasting apart from this internal pressure. So he said it.  
  
"Hilde."  
  
"Hmm."  
  
"I think I'm gay."  
  
The waves didn't change. The moon didn't fall, the stars didn't spin, and she didn't say anything. For a long time. Finally he looked up at her.  
  
The expression on her face was _\--_ amused? He wasn't sure.  
  
"Duo," she said, gently, and laid a hand on his knee. "I think so too."  
  
+  
  
"Should have told me," he mumbled to the dress, breathing in the faint remnants of Chanel's Allure. "Could have saved me a bit of trouble."  
  
"Duo!" His former roommate bounded into the room. "We came to help!"  
  
Duo shoved the dress back and turned easily. "Yeah? You bring that sexy man of yours?"  
  
"Of course I did," the blonde said. "What should I start with?"  
  
"Uh, I'm not quite done in here, yet," he said, putting on his best dashing grin.  
  
Cerulean eyes moved innocently over the contents of the closet and back to Duo's face with such a lack of guile that Duo couldn't be sure what the other boy was thinking.  
  
"All right! We'll be out in the kitchen!"  
  
"Probably thinks I'm a drag queen," Duo muttered, turning back to the closet.  
  
The third dress was one she had bought for their first year spring break.  
  
+  
  
_The St.James Maui, April 2000_  
  
+  
  
"Isn't it great?" she asked happily, swinging around in their sumptuous Hawaiian hotel room.  
  
He was stretched out on the bed. "Gorgeous."  
  
"You didn't look."  
  
His eyes were too intent on the beautiful boy passing by the window to bother with her. "I saw it when you bought it and when you packed it and about six times in between."  
  
"Forgive me for being so excited. I've never been to any place like this before."  
  
And if it hadn't been for a little help from his new friend Quatre she wouldn't be here now. Neither of them would, especially not in this palace that Quatre's friend's family seemed to own. Mr. Beautiful disappeared from view, and Duo sighed and turned over. He liked the way the men here looked _\--_ he'd always had a weakness for boys with some Asian blood, and the combination of native Polynesians and Japanese tourists was a promising one.  
  
"I just can't believe that after all that 'I need a bright summer dress' you buy a black one."  
  
"Black is slimming and stylish. One cannot go wrong in black."  
  
He peeked over to see if she was being sarcastic. "Maybe I just wanted to match you."  
  
Now he was sure she was getting in a few digs. "I'll have you know that I plan on wearing a Hawaiian shirt tonight."

"Yeah, because Quatre batted those pretty blue eyes at you and asked please real nice."  
  
Duo grinned. Quatre did have nice eyes. And a nice body. Unfortunately, he also had a nice inside, which was one reason that Duo was on the prowl. One didn't play fuck-and-run with one's friends, after all.  
  
Hilde finally hung up her dress _\--_ soft cotton, low neck, straps that crossed in the back, clung to her body like a lover's thought _\--_ and sprawled on the bed beside him. "See anybody nice?"  
  
"A few."  
  
"Keep an eye out for one for me."  
  
"You gonna have a vacation flirtation?" he said, and the almost-rhyme amused him. "A vacation flirtation dalmatian plantation?"  
  
She rolled her eyes. "Actually. . . I wanted to find somebody to sleep with."  
  
He started back, completely and utterly shocked. "Hil."  
  
She shrugged, not taking her eyes off the window.  
  
"You can't just _\--_ "  
  
"You do. Sleep with strangers."  
  
"Not that many," he said. Not often enough.  
  
She shot him an arch glance. "Tell that to your priest, boy, because I know you too well. I'm sick of being a virgin. I want it over, done with. Gone. I want to be free, Duo, and right now I'm not."  
  
He reached out, awkward for once in his life. "I could. . . maybe. . . ."  
  
She laughed out loud. "I really think not."  
  
"I just can't believe you'd do this so, so, abruptly!"  
  
"I've been thinking about it for a long time, Duo, and this is what I want." With a grin she rolled from the bed and walked over to her suitcase. She took out a bottle of scent that she had purchased on their shopping trip that morning, something exotic and floral with a hint of dark pleasure. The scent bit at his nose as she delicately pressed it to her body _\--_ rarely the same spots twice, but always somewhere a bit mysterious. The back of a knee, the underside of a breast, the inside of a thigh. Today it was one of her favorite locales _\--_ the small of her back, right in the curve of the scythe she had tattooed there. He had chosen it, of course, just as she had picked the black rose that grew at the base of his spine.  
  
"I love you, Hilde," he said.  
  
She glanced over her shoulder, carelessly, and smiled.  
  
For the first time he wondered if that wasn't enough.  
  
+  
  
The smell of the islands still hung to the dress, he thought whimsically, knowing full well that she'd washed it after that night. Had to, to get the bodily fluids out. He remembered her walking away down the beach with some overly pretty French tourist. He'd been being kissed by a totally beautiful island god, but as he'd watched her trip alluringly down the sands with Pierre or whatever the hell his name had been, he'd been unmoved. It was not his favorite dress.  
  
He much preferred the next one. It was more mature, somehow, bought on the trip to Italy she'd gone on with her parents. In some ways it was like the first one, only this time the two parts were attached and the overdress was sheer chiffon rather than lace. The keyhole neckline had suited her, and the high beaded front had made her look older. By that time she had short, spiky hair, and wore Givenchy's Hot Couture with a slightly wicked air. Their second year of college had been notable, a red letter year. It had been then that he'd really truly fallen in love, and fallen happily into a relationship. She'd worn this dress to the end of the year ball, and he'd told her she looked like a goddess and twirled her around the dance floor while his lover watched.  
  
Afterward they had stolen away, to the garden outside, and Hilde had tipped her head back like she was drinking the moonlight.   
  
+

 _Gundam University Finals Ball, St.James Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, May 2001_  
  
+  
  
"Are you happy?" she said.  
  
He had thought of what the man with the dark blue eyes had done to him the night before with a shudder. "Oh, yes."  
  
"Not lonely anymore?" She had turned to him, her skin pale as the moon, and he had fought an absurd desire to reach out and grab her, hold her so tightly that she would never slip away. Because she was.  
  
"No," he had said instead. "Not lonely."  
  
They had been silent a few minutes, and then he had blurted out, "but I haven't really been lonely since fifth grade, Hil. I mean, Beau was good company, and you weren't half bad yourself."  
  
She had snorted, a half laugh, and rolled her eyes.  
  
"Did I ever tell you that I used to pretend you were the reincarnation of my brother?" he said.  
  
"I couldn't be," she said. "You and I are the same age. He didn't die until I was three."  
  
"I know," he said. "But, well, you know how I used to call him Solo?" He knew she knew that he hadn't known his twin brother's name any more than he knew what his own actually was _\--_ Duo had been the only survivor of a car accident that had killed both the woman who must have been his mother and the boy with his face. One of them had died _\--_ the other had come out without a scratch, unable to remember what his mother had called him except "my dynamic duo." So Duo he was, and Solo his brother had been posthumously christened. "Sometimes, when I catch a glimpse of you coming towards me, I think, oh, here comes my Solo _\--_ or when I don't see you, I think, where's my twin?" He reached out and stroked her hair _\--_ she batted his hand away with a smile. "Like you were given to me to fill that space in my life."  
  
Her smile faded. "I'm no consolation prize, Duo."  
  
"No," he said softly, seriously. "You're not."  
  
"And I'm not something you own. And I won't be with you forever."  
  
His own smile faded. "You say it like you're planning on leaving me."  
  
She looked exasperated. "And you say that like I'm your girlfriend." She turned away, again, and stared at the moon. "You've got Heero now."  
  
The simple truth of that statement rocked him to the core. "I know."  
  
She rocked a bit in her high shoes, letting the wind sway her. "And I've got. . . I don't know what I've got."  
  
"Good hair."  
  
"I was thinking more wanderlust." She sighed and took a few steps, away from him, away from the party. "I thought I'd be better once I left Exodus, once I got away from Maine and my childhood, that I'd be able to be somebody different. That I'd be free. And I keep looking, Duo, but I can't find any place where I want to be at home."  
  
"You think I don't know what that feels like?" he said, his voice very quiet.  
  
"You've got a reason, an excuse. You had this gorgeously troubled childhood _\--_ no matter what you do, you're set. You've got a reason for failure and a bonus for success." She flapped her hands. "Don't get mad, Duo, you know I don't mean to insult you in any way. Just _\--_ listen to me for a second. I don't have anything. I had a perfectly normal upbringing _\--_ my parents were married, they're still alive, my siblings were brats but not psychopaths, I had a dog named Beau and took him for walks every day. So what the hell is wrong with me?"  
  
"Nothing," he said, horribly afraid that she might be crying. Her eyes were glinting. . . he took a step closer.  
  
She wrapped her arms around herself. He paused. "I'm not okay," she said, still not looking at him. "I'm not okay. I'm lonely. I want to fall in love. I want to see the whole world. I don't want to have a job, not ever. I want to be like you _\--_ I want to know that the world isn't full of strangers, just friends I haven't met yet. I want to stop being fat and ugly and stupid."  
  
"Jesus, Hilde," he snapped. "You're not fat _\--_ you haven't been since elementary school. And you've never been ugly. You are being sort of stupid, though, right now."  
  
She raised her eyes to him. "I still feel fat."  
  
Duo sighed, not sure what to say. Women _\--_ weight _\--_ bad topic for discussion. Even he knew that.  
  
She sighed and looked away again. "I just _\--_ I'm just jealous. Seeing you and Heero. You're so perfect together, and I just feel so alone."  
  
"Hilde, you're going to find somebody who's right for you. I know it."  
  
"I don't want to," she said. "I don't want that." She shivered; he started to offer her his jacket, but she shook his head. "I don't need it, Duo. I just need _\--_ to walk. I'll see you later, okay? I'm heading home." She glanced inside. "Your boyfriend's waiting for you."  
  
He had watched her walk away into the garden until the black of her dress had blended into the night. Then he had turned and walked back inside to dance with his lover.  
  
+  
  
"Duo, do you really think that you need four copies of this book?"  
  
Duo turned, and laughed. "I sure as hell do. You know how much I love that one."  
  
Heero turned a dubious eye to the multiple copies of Howl's Moving Castle he carried. "You've got four copies."  
  
Duo shrugged, moving over to take the books from his lover. "It used to be out of print, and since it's pretty much the greatest book ever written, I bought a copy every time I came across one. Then, of course, they started printing it again, so I had to buy the new version. To support it." He dropped a kiss on the other boy's nose. "That's why I've got two more copies in that box over there."  
  
Heero surveyed the room full of boxes. "I don't know how well this is going to fit. You got a lot of junk."  
  
"It's not all mine," Duo said. "Some of it. . . we'll find a way." He pressed his cheek against Heero's shoulder; his lover's hands ran over his braid.  
  
+  
  
_Hilde's apartment, Virginia. August 2002._  
  
+  
  
"That's quite a dress," Duo said as he stepped inside his best friend's flat. "Do you always wear velvet to register for classes?"  
  
She grinned and spun around. The dress was beautiful, floor length black velvet with a low front and a lower back. "You like?"  
  
He smiled. "I do. Though you shouldn't let Relena play dress up with you. She can afford to buy herself a Barbie."  
  
Hilde whacked him. "Relena had nothing to do with it. I picked it out all by myself when I was in London."  
  
He rolled his eyes. "Ah, yes, the amazing summer job." He hefted his school handbook meaningfully. "Well, back to school, what fun, pip pip, right-o?"  
  
"Actually," she said, and laughed. Nervously. Happily, but nervously. "I've been offered a place in Milan for the semester. It's free _\--_ it transfers _\--_ and so I said I'd take it."  
  
"Milan?" he asked, his voice echoing in the hollowness of his body.  
  
"Yeah. Y'know, Italy." She was twisting the black velvet _\--_ he reached out and stopped her hand. Shouldn't do that to an obviously expensive dress. "I'll be going to school part time and working for the same firm I worked for in London part time. There was some suggestion that if I did well, they might give me a job after I finished."  
  
"In Milan?" he asked.  
  
"Yes," she said. "In Milan. With a lot of travel."  
  
He bit his lip and pushed past her. "How long have you known this?" The door to her room was half open _\--_ he could see that the room was almost empty. Two days before it had been cluttered and messily Hilde. He bit harder.  
  
"I applied last spring. They said yes in June."  
  
He turned to look at her, his eyes stark against his pale face. "You've known since June?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Right, then," he said, and turned and stalked out. She followed him, running after him in her velvet dress, but he wasn't paying any attention, just started running harder. She burst into the flat he'd spent the summer in _\--_ two floors above the one she shared with Relena _\--_ scant seconds after he did.

"Damn it, Duo!"  
  
"How could you not tell me?" he yelled.  
  
"I don't know," she said, and she was crying. "I just couldn't."  
  
"So you just let me go on talking about us being in the same class and so on and so forth? And about all the stuff we could do as seniors?"  
  
"Duo _\--_ " she started.  
  
"I thought we _\--_ I thought _\--_ "  
  
"I'm sorry!"  
  
"No," he said, "you're not. You're too busy practicing your Italian phrases and trying on black velvet to give a damn about me."   
  
He reached out to touch her dress _\--_ she backed away _\--_ and the strap he was holding broke at one end.  
  
The dress slid down, a bit; Hilde looked at it in resignation.  
  
"Fucking velvet, Hilde," he said. "What the hell happened to Ms. I'll never pay that much for a dress while there are children starving? Ms. Comfort is a product of the women's rights movement? Ms. Pantyhose are a tool of satan?"  
  
Hilde shook her head and stepped out of the dress, balling it up and throwing it at him. "Fine! I won't grow up, Duo _\--_ does that make you happy?"  
  
"Your fucking underwear matches," he sneered.  
  
She fumed, crossing her arms over the black strapless bra that did indeed match her panties. "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"  
  
"Next you'll be wearing boots with heels and ruining your lower back and what the fuck am I supposed to do without you?" he demanded.  
  
She was crying again. "The same things you do with me! Sleep with Heero, hang out with Quatre, bicker with Wufei and make fun of Relena. You'll be fine."  
  
"You're my best friend," he said.  
  
"Yes," she said, "I am. I am Duo Maxwell's Best Friend. Every time I'm around you, I lost my name. I'm just Duo's Best Friend. I have frickin' teachers who call me that, Duo, and I just. . . need need need to be free."  
  
"You're always talking about being free," he yelled.  
  
"That's because you always make me feel trapped!" she yelled back.  
  
"So you're going to fucking Italy to get away from me?" he screamed.  
  
"No, you idiot," she said, and she was crying so hard he could hardly understand her. "I'm going to get away from me, and to find me, and to be me and I think I'd die if I couldn't get away."  
  
"You run too much," he told her.  
  
"You hold too much," she replied, and turned and walked out, proudly, in her black bra and panties.  
  
He wadded her dress in his hands and watched her go.  
  
+  
  
It was a beautiful dress, he admitted to himself, even on a hanger. He ran a hand over it lightly, touched the hidden seam he'd put there himself. He was good at things like that _\--_ Hilde was always leaving her rips for him to mend. She was rather accident prone. The dress, when he touched his face to it, smelled of Gaultier's femme, of Hilde, and of him.  
  
"I can't believe she's gone," he said softly.  
  
"I can't believe you let her go."  
  
He started, then turned to scowl at his friend. "I didn't exactly give her my blessing. And it's not like I had a choice."  
  
Quatre came closer, sat on the edge of the bed they'd shared numerous times. "I can't believe you let her go like that. Without your blessing."  
  
"She doesn't need it."  
  
"No. I suppose not."  
  
"What the hell would you know about it?"  
  
Quatre shrugged gracefully. "I've got a lot of sisters, Duo. Some of them I tolerate and some of them I love more than breath. And I considered going off to the same college as some of them, or going to school near home, and maybe for somebody else that would have been good. But I needed space."  
  
"Hilde's not my sister."  
  
"If you say so." Quatre shrugged again. "Seems to me the big difference there is you got to pick her and I never got to pick mine."  
  
"Quatre, this is not a sitcom. We are not going to have some cheesy conversation that's going to make everything be all right. Hilde left me."  
  
"No, Duo, she didn't."  
  
Duo narrowed his eyes. "She damn well did."  
  
Quatre stood up. "Don't be such a selfish bastard, Duo. Hilde didn't do this to you or for you or because of you. She did it for her, and she did it by herself."  
  
Duo kicked a box. "I fucking hate growing up. Everything sucks. Christmas isn't as fun, the music isn't as good, and people grow apart."  
  
"I fucking love it," Quatre retorted. "I've got more control, people are more interesting, and sex just plain rocks." He shot Duo an arch glance and slipped from the room.  
  
Alone, Duo looked at five black dresses. And shrugged. "He's got a point with that sex thing."  
  
+  
  
Ten minutes later, Duo shot through the kitchen. Heero paused and looked after his braided lover. "Where you going?"  
  
Duo slid back, kissed his boyfriend, and left again. "Be back soon!"  
  
"Not an answer," Heero muttered.  
  
"You know where he's going," Trowa said.  
  
Heero grunted.  
  
"And you know what that means."  
  
Heero grunted again. "It means I owe you ten bucks. Damn. I was sure that he'd be mad for at least twenty-four hours."  
  
+  
  
"There's a war coming down between my friend and I! I don't want no war! Going down, going down tonight! Stop this war! Stop this war!"  
  
Hilde stirred, and then sat up in bed. "What the hell?"  
  
"We ain't no sect, we ain't no fucking faction! Unity unity you've heard it all before!"  
  
Relena appeared in the doorway. "Do you have any idea why there is a lunatic singing outside our door at eight in the morning?"  
  
Hilde shook her head.  
  
"Unity! As one stand together !"  
  
Relena rolled her eyes. "I'm putting in earplugs and going back to sleep. God. I mean, it's summer. We're supposed to be able to sleep late."  
  
"Right," Hilde managed. Outside, he'd started on a new song. "Do you like American music? I like American music!"  
  
She got up and brushed her teeth _\--_ even he didn't deserve her morning breath. She splashed water on her face and wondered what the hell she was doing.  
  
"I want you to hold me! I want your arms around me! Did you do too many drugs? I did too many drugs! Baby!"  
  
"Can't even get the song right," she mumbled, and stalked over to the door. Opened it.  
  
"I need a date to the prom. . . would you like to come along ?"  
  
"Been there, done that. What are you doing here at this hour?"  
  
Duo's grin was as silly and sloppy as she'd ever seen it. "Whaddya mean, what am I doing? My bestest friend is going far far away in what, two weeks? We don't have time to sleep in! C'mon, baby, let's go paint the town! Pick a color, any color."  
  
"I thought you were getting all packed up to move in with Heero."  
  
Duo waggled his eyebrows. "I promised him lots of good sex in exchange for him doing all the work."  
  
"Why do I have the feeling that it would work that way anyway?" she asked, and let him in.  
  
"Like my shirt?"  
  
She read the message on it and winced. "Um."  
  
"Oh, yeah, and I think these are yours. Five black dresses. They were in my closet."  
  
She took them, slightly bemused. "I remember leaving this one there yesterday. . . and this is from when I crashed at your house after that party. . . but how did you end up with this one?"  
  
"Well," said Duo, and grinned again. "I thought it'd look good on me."  
  
She whacked him with a hanger and he threw a cushion at her and she pulled his braid. "You're so tone deaf."  
  
"I so am not! I was going to do Lost in a Supermarket next. Or maybe You're So Great. . . . "  
  
"Keep the voice off the Coxon," she warned him. "Give me a second to pull on some clothes and then you can buy me coffee. Might as well have a last few hundred cups of American swill before I leave, right?"  
  
"Oh, I have a shirt for you, too," Duo said. "Made it myself."  
  
She eyed it dubiously. "I never would have guessed."  
  
+  
  
Midori raised an eyebrow as Duo and Hilde came in, arm in arm. One had a shirt that said "Hilde Scheibecker," the other had a shirt that said "Hilde Scheibecker's Best Friend." She elbowed Wufei and pointed the sight out.  
  
Wufei took one look and started laughing. When she looked at him quizzically he grinned triumphantly and explained, "Not only did I just win twenty bucks off of Heero _\--_ he said it would be at least two days _\--_ but I can't wait to see the look on his face when he realizes that Duo's been raiding his tank top collection."  
  
Midori grinned and smoothed her black dress. "I'll drink to that."   
  
~owari


End file.
